Political

While social media has become a big factor in political donations in the last decade or so, its worth pointing out a holistic approach to campaign donations includes the phone. Telephone marketing is a very effective way in fact of reaching customers - which is why it became a victim of its own success - with an eventual government Do Not Call List. This list doesn't apply to political campaigns and moreover, the phone can be even more effective for politicians as a result of less competition from companies giving you free vacations if you listen to a time share presentation.

Recently, Infocision Management Corp, one of the highest-quality marketing outsourcers/partners I am aware of started calling for campaign contributions for Doctor Ben Carson - a straight-talking surgeon turned presidential candidate thanks to a loyal Tea Party/conservative base that just adores him.

Steve Brubaker at Infocision just sent me a video link to Dr. Carson's recent visit to the company - here it is.

One last point - I have visited the company and its call center before and have overheard these sorts of phone calls for numerous candidates - some of which who drop out before even "officially" running. The phone is an effective gauge of voter interest in a politician. By making a certain number of phone calls and tallying the response, a candidate can extrapolate how much money they can generate if they keep calling.

Moreover, big data and a massive database are key components to ensuring you know who to target.

The Momentum Machines burger robot robot explained
As cities around the country are passing laws to ensure minimum wages are increased to a "living wage," the tech industry is doing what it does best... Automating like crazy. We can soon expect drive-through fast food locations to have touch screens - or even apps on smartphones - which of course most support today. This will be coupled with automated machines on the back-end which produce the food such as hamburgers, etc.

If you’re paying any attention at all, you know there was a major Republican victory in the recent midterm elections and in January a Republican majority in the Senate will join the Republican majority in the House. It was known before the election that President Obama planned to use an executive order to promote backdoor amnesty.

This was likely part of the reason for the major loss in the election but the president has decided to proceed anyway and very soon we expect him to cease deportations of millions of illegal immigrants.

All it took was one bad actor… BTCST was a Bitcoin-based hedge fund savings & trust which turns out to be more Ponzi scheme than investment vehicle. Investors collectively lost 263,104 Bitcoin in principal, that is $1,834,303 based on the daily average price of Bitcoin when they purchased their BTCST investments, or in excess of $23 million based on currently available Bitcoin exchange rates. The founder of the fund Trendon Shavers was formally charged by the SEC in 2012 but Shavers fought back by saying Bitcoin is not money so it isn’t subject to Federal Securities Laws.

It turns out Judge Amos Mazzant disagrees and in a statement mentions that Shavers used Bitcoins to pay his living expenses and moreover explains that even though Bitcoins aren’t accepted everywhere, they can be converted to other forms of currency.

With global uncertainty the norm, many carriers have struggled to get financing for new infrastructure projects and in fact they have been a bit hesitant to spend on areas other than wireless where ROI is much more predictable. Subsequently, the financial challenges facing Alcatel-Lucent, NokiaSiemens Networks, ZTE and others aren’t expected to dissipate any time soon. What may be a surprise to some though is how ZTE, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer with relatively low costs could have lost $414 in Q3 of this year while seeing sales drop by 13% and gross margins cut in half.

In response to this decline, China Development Bank (CDB) an entity controlled by the Chinese government has given the company a $20B line of credit at very low rates allowing it to streamline operations, continue its expansion and perhaps most importantly finance its customers’ purchases.

I am fortunate to have watched my father at a young age start TMC – the company where I am CEO and turn it into a company which has helped feed thousands over its 40-year history when you consider contractors, freelancers and their family members. I have always seen the United States as the “land of opportunity.” After all, a person could come here with a few dollars in his pocket, not know the language and become a successful publisher of magazines.

In many other countries this can’t happen because of an entrenched class system and a bloated government making rules and regulations which strangle business.

And my father’s story is far from unique – many people come to the US every year and make it big and in the process boost the economy in myriad ways.

The biggest issue the US currently faces is a lack of jobs and perversely we have a President who has never actually worked in the private sector. To keep this from becoming a partisan post, President Bush was in the private sector but didn't appear to actually be successful there.

So if the next election has to do with getting Americans back to work, many people believe the best person to achieve this goal is someone who has been successful in business and has hired and fired people in their career.

Contrary to popular belief, a presidential candidate who laid people off is in the best position to understand why businesses lay off and subsequently help foster a climate where less companies consider parting with workers. A candidate who hired overseas instead of in the US is in the best position to understand why the US and US workers in particular are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing internationally.

For these and other reasons, Silicon Valley's Marc Andreessen is endorsing Romney and even if he isn't the most conservative person from a social perspective he understands business, global competition and has the greatest potential to help the US compete against the emerging global powerhouses of India and China.